M&S clothing boss is shown the door

Jill McDonald ousted in blow to turnaround drive at chain

MARKS & Spencer’s head of clothing has been ousted after less than two years at the chain – dealing a blow to chief executive Steve Rowe.

Jill McDonald’s departure comes days after Rowe slammed supply problems at M&S and warned its fashion arm will need improvement.

The 55-year-old resigned after Rowe asked her to step down, and he said rapid action is now needed to fix the firm’s clothing and home business. It will raise doubts over the judgement of Rowe, who had hired McDonald ( pictured) in September 2017 as part of a major shake-up and described her as ‘exactly the right person’ to run the division.

A former Halfords chief executive, McDonald’s arrival in September 2017 raised eyebrows due to her lack of any fashion industry experience. Before heading up the bike chain, she was in charge of the UK arm at fast food chain McDonald’s.

The executive’s successes include introducing a hugely popular collaboration with television presenter Holly Willoughby, who selects a range of clothes for a Holly’s Must Haves collection.

But M&S has also been struggling with issues plaguing its supply chain, meaning it has failed to stock enough of its most popular products.

At the firm’s annual shareholder meeting earlier this week, Rowe admitted he had been frustrated with poor availability of a popular jeans range worn by Willoughby.

He said: ‘That led us having some of the worst availability in casual trousers I’ve seen in my life.’ The chief executive will now step in and take responsibility for running the clothing division, as well as day-to-day management of the group.

Before being promoted to the top job in 2016, Rowe ran M&S’s fashion arm for almost a year.

It comes in the middle of a huge turnaround drive which saw a string of senior M&S managers pushed out and replaced with new faces, while the leadership structure was simplified.

Last year chairman Archie Norman said M&S had ‘no God given right to exist and unless we change, in decades to come there will be no M&S’.

The reshuffle has also seen Norman’s protegee and former Asda and Sainsbury’s executive Stuart Machin recruited as head of food. And former Dixons Carphone finance chief Humphrey Singer was poached to fill the same position at M&S.

The retailer has also admitted to being too expensive, out of touch and too bureaucratic. It is shutting around 120 unprofitable shops, and has admitted more closures could be on the way.

Meanwhile, sales have continued to fall. M&S’s full-year results revealed a 1.6pc drop in clothing and a 2.3pc decrease in food.

Profits also tumbled 10pc to £523m, the third consecutive year they have fallen. McDonald’s pay has never been disclosed as she does not sit on M&S’s board, but she is understood to have been handed compensation for a £1.7m bonus she missed out on after leaving Halfords.

Rowe said: ‘Jill was brought in to establish a strong platform for the transformation of the clothing and home business. She has achieved that.

‘The business now needs to move on at pace to address long- standing issues in our clothing and home supply chain around availability and flow of product.

‘Given the importance of this task to M&S, I will be overseeing this programme directly.’

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